If you’re feeling altruistic you may be interested in the latest project of Stuart Murdoch, the frontman of Glasgow top indie kids Belle & Sebastian. Well, we say new project but the project initially came to light in 2003 with the creation of some songs that weren’t quite right for the band and has snowballed from there.

The story behind the ‘God Help The Girl’ is as charming and as optimistic as you would expect from the band. Advertisements were placed looking for female singers with Murdoch being inundated with auditions from all around the world. ‘Funny Little Frog’ by Belle & Sebastian was one of the songs the hopefuls were required to song and a version of this track, alongside ‘Act of The Apostle’ found its way onto the album, released in 2009.

The main responsibility for the vocals fell on Catherine Ireton, an Irish singer that Stuart Murdoch first met in 2005.

The album was met to a good deal of critical acclaim, coming across as a natural follow-on from the 1960s girl-group formula. There was a short tour to promote the album but that was not the end of the project, which is where the film comes in…and you can help by donating some funds via an account on the Kickstarter website.

When we checked, with 29 days to go, a total of $54,000 had been raised. A great sum of money but there is still a long way to go until the target is reached so there is definitely a need for interested backers to step up and be counted.

It is fair to say that using Kickstarter and other avenues is a very good way of creating awareness and funding in a project and it certainly makes sense for this project. Okay, Belle & Sebastian don’t have the biggest fan base in the world but they certainly seem to have one of the most loyal and supporting audiences and playing a part in bringing this project to life will definitely be of interest to many of the group’s fans.

It should also be something that is of benefit and interest to Glaswegians so there may be a chance to drum up interest from people who have the city at the heart. It is not as if B&S should feature at the heart of any promotional campaign run by a Glasgow tourist group but they have been fine ambassadors for the city and they have definitely brought people to Glasgow.

The fact that there are plenty of opportunities to fund the project from $5 (about £3.25 according to the xe.com site) will hopefully allow people to play a part. Some people might say that a $5 contribution is of no great merit when the overall target is $100,000 but if everyone who likes the band or has an interest in a film about Glasgow being made chips in, all those $5’s could start to add up.

At this stage it is too early to say whether the target will be met and whether the project will be complete. Sometimes letting musicians become involved in the movie industry isn’t the brightest idea because for every ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ there are likely to be at least 20 rubbish music related films….a great number of them involving Elvis. You can say what you want about Elvis but he never made a music film as great as ‘Slade In Flame’.

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God Help The Girl has sped past its Kickstarter deadline (sitting at $106K USD today) before its February 12th deadline. Over 1000 Belle and Sebastian fans across the globe, from Australia to Sweden, have pledged their support and their money. For those folk still wanting to come on board, there are still a number of unique prizes available from exclusively designed t-shirts and DVDs for kickstarters only, personalised name film credits plus the chance to shout ‘Action’ on the first take …. but only til February 12th.http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/godhelpthegirl/god-help-the-girl-musical-film/posts